A new crisis in hemispheric democracy: the unhealthy media ecosystem

The Western Hemisphere faces any number of crises in 2022 as it heads into the Summit of the Americas this week.

Climate change and a failure to change human behavior will lead to storms of greater intensity and frequency that will threaten tens of millions of Americans throughout the hemisphere. Democracy, once the unquestioned standard of regional governance as recently as 1994, when it was celebrated at the inaugural Miami Summit of the Americas, is also in crisis.

Democratic backsliding and a rise in autocratic governance in several nations, such as Mexico, El Salvador and Brazil, to say nothing of the extinction of democracy in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, represent extremely dangerous realities.

There is a third crisis that is directly related to the tattered state of hemispheric democracy: the unhealthy media ecosystem. How citizens are informed to be stewards of their own political and economic destinies by means of the ballot box is an essential component of a thriving democratic society. Sadly, traditional media (print, broadcast, and radio) and the critical functions of newer, online digital and streaming media have become excessively polarized and partisan.

A quick look at the nature of the problem reveals five fundamental sources of partisan influence that have crept into most media that is consumed in the Americas. Governments, opposition parties, foreign governments, corporate interests, and organized crime have all increasingly infiltrated the newsrooms and editorial conference rooms of traditional family-based media conglomerates to promote their narrow, interest-based agendas.

To be fair, this phenomenon is hardly new. The famous Mexican columnist Jorge Ibarbuengoitia recounted in his classic “Herod’s Law” the press practice of chayote, when journalists would be paid off by local PRI party bagmen “just over there, by the chayote plant,” to ensure positive coverage of the governor or mayor’s latest public pronouncements. In other countries this practice was known as “brown envelope” journalism for the cash handed surreptitiously from a party hack to a cooperating, corrupt journalist.

Yet historically there were also newspapers, radio announcers, and news figures of record who were generally thought to be beyond such influence. Perhaps the greatest example of this journalistic rectitude was the American television anchorman Walter Cronkite, universally referred to as “the most trusted man in America.” His competitors John Chancellor and Peter Jennings had similar reputations for telling it like it was, and clearly separating fact-based reporting from opinion pieces.

In the online and streaming worlds, the most powerful content providers have never been formally trained in journalistic ethics or the practice of quality journalism. The very concept of presenting content absent an opinion or slant is almost counter intuitive. The whole point of an influencer is to tell followers what they are thinking or feeling, or how they are reacting to a reality-based (or reality show) fact. Followers in turn react with an emoji, expressing their opinions back at these new technological story tellers. Spin, bias, and subjectivity are inherent in the medium.

Often frivolous and sophomoric, we should nonetheless not underestimate the reach and power of today's mostly adolescent Instagramers, Youtubers, and TikTok-ers. A 17 year-old girl in Mexico City with a streaming account that has a half million followers and usually focuses on fashion tips could conceivably throw a local election with one viral twenty second video.

In 2017, disgraced former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli produced a series of online videos with a popular rapper touting his fame as 'The Crazy One.' The tagline: “Sure, he (Martinelli) stole (public funds), but he got stuff done!”

In the American presidential race of 2020, K-pop fans on TikTok conducted a loosely coordinated, online hoax to make it appear that a President Trump rally would be attended by multitudes when, in fact, actual participants were only a few thousand, thus making the event appear a pathetic failure. Regardless of one’s opinion about Donald Trump, or whether this was a good outcome, the sheer motivational power of these digital democracy influencers must be recognized and respected.

In this brave new digital world, there is a yawning and urgent need for truly independent formal media and informal influencers in 2022. Citizens in any democracy must have access to fact-based, contextualized information to make up their own minds regarding issues of the day. When asked, most observers recognize the imperative of such a reality. Majorities in most countries bemoan the hyper partisan polarization of media in their countries. Few would argue that the need for genuine public interest media is not pressing. And yet, fewer still are offering viable solutions that might lead to the development of such a civic minded media ecosystem.

What is clear is that the family-owned, newspaper, radio and television station enterprise model is flailing, financially and often editorially. With few exceptions, media industries in most countries of the Western Hemisphere are trending towards greater consolidation as revenues fall, with a commensurate loss of regional diversity, granularity, and flavor.

Also undeniable is that fewer citizens are turning to these formerly trusted outlets to get their news and information, preferring Facebook, and other algorithm- based social media platforms to inform themselves about what is going on in their community or country. Something's got to give. The center of old media cannot hold … and democracy is at stake.